This afternoon, Suzanne B. Goldberg responded to concerns raised about the sexual assault data released to the Columbia community in a report earlier this week. Goldberg, President Bollinger’s recently appointed Special Advisor on Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, posted an update on Columbia’s sexual respect website.

Goldberg begins by calling Columbia’s new Gender-Based Misconduct Policy “one of the best in the nation,” and continues, “To the extent some students still believe there are barriers to accessing the extensive network of confidential counseling, support, and medical services as well as the formal disciplinary process, the University will continue to do all it can to educate community members about these resources.”

Addressing the question “Why doesn’t the Report provide information about which sanctions were imposed on students found responsible for various violations or about the schools where respondents were found responsible?” Golberg states (emphasis ours), “Given these small numbers [of students accused of violating the policy], the University cannot release information about specific sanctions or respondents’ schools without potentially exposing the identity of these students and violating both the strong mandate of the President’s Advisory Committee on Sexual Assault (PACSA) and its own commitment not to speak publicly about individual students involved in disciplinary proceedings.”

To the question “Why doesn’t the Report indicate when a respondent has been accused of gender-based misconduct by multiple complainants?” Goldberg against cites confidentiality concerns: “Given the small numbers of disciplinary proceedings, including those for sexual assault, the likelihood is very high that further detail about identities could be used to expose complainants, respondents, or both…. To identify which cases involved the same respondent, if any, runs a high risk of exposing individual students.” She adds (emphasis ours), “While some of the academic literature shows that a small number of students deliberately commit serial offenses at their college or university, my own view is that it is a mistake to think this small group is responsible for all of the sexual violence that occurs on any college or university campus…. This is not to say that serial perpetrators do not exist; rather, the point is that even if a campus, or a broader society, could remove those perpetrators from a community, sexual assault and other forms of gender-based misconduct would not cease to occur.”

The statement concludes, “What I hope all students and others will take away from this week’s Report…is that Columbia continues to listen, act, and work to improve both prevention and response. The University’s commitment to a learning community where everyone can fully participate is fundamental. And it is the members of this community—students, administrators, faculty, and staff—who, together, can make realization of this shared commitment possible.” The statement does not address concerns previously voiced by student groups that “Essential student concerns have not been meaningfully addressed in the new policy” and that “These oversights might have been avoided if student voices had been included in this process.”

The full statement is available on the homepage of Columbia’s sexual respect website.